


Shattered

by Heather C (riteinthefeels)



Series: Take Me Out [2]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), Thor (Movies)
Genre: Allusions to Suicide, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-16
Updated: 2014-01-16
Packaged: 2018-01-08 21:53:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 860
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1137817
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/riteinthefeels/pseuds/Heather%20C
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A continuation of "Broken," set during The Avengers.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Shattered

Stillness, except for the movement he made himself when woken again from restless sleep, and all he wanted was for that tranquility to invade his ears, his mouth, his lungs, his subconscious mind and be swept into nothing, but his estranged daughter denied him. This torment would hound him until the end, until his ragged, hungry, vagabond soul had swallowed and transmogrified those who loved him, those who hated him, and the very worlds they stood upon.

Would that those worlds ended sooner rather than later, but Hela gave no shimmering margin for him to speed along the inevitable. Always she countered that the ship would not yet sail, and sent him away, yet he had no home to which to return, not any more. Recurrent nightmares of once-brother turned hand of justice interrupted his sleep until he no longer wished a bed to lie upon.

A state of pure exhaustion became Loki’s norm, stumbling here, magic flickering there. Afraid as he was of Thanos, he couldn’t shake the conviction that this plan would be botched by some fatal error along the way, due either to his fatigue or to the foreign magic on which he was to rely. Still, until that happened, he intended to follow it through.

The Hawk had voiced concern earlier, but he had waved the mortal away, saying he was merely adjusting to Midgard’s atmosphere. Thor’s boots echoed not only in his nightmares now, but in every waking moment. Shadows danced into his brother’s shape; lights flickered, and he cringed, sure that his end bore down upon him. He yet had so much to do.

A soldier passing through on his route around the tunnels heard Loki rustling and shifting on his cot and pulled back the curtain.

“Everything okay, boss?”

The trickster grumbled as he sat up on the taut canvas. “It’s nothing.”

The soldier nodded and went on his way, memory of the man who had crossed Loki earlier still fresh in his mind—the scepter pressed hard into the mercenary’s chest, pointed blade digging a trench into his sternum while blue energy coursed into his bloodstream and flooded from his panicked eyes and screaming lips until his heart, beating at the rate of a hummingbird’s, gave out, and he collapsed. Blue wisps dissipated in the air above his body, dragging oozing blood from every cavity through which they had coursed.

The farther the soldier’s footfalls echoed down the tunnels, the less they sounded like the shuffling, near-silent steps of an assassin, and more the booming, hard-heeled stomps of a proud warrior. Loki squeezed his eyes shut and bent over his knees, hands pressed to his head to relieve the pounding within and without.

He rose unsteadily, fingers digging into cracks in the masonry until bits crumbled away into dust and rubble beneath his nails. Standing straight, he smoothed his clothing and donned the six-tailed coat, and stumbling only once or twice, he strutted to Selvig’s makeshift lab to check on the astrophysicist’s progress.

~*~

The damned fools had fallen for it. He knew Midgardians were dim, but this was just too easy. The Hawk had grabbed the iridium from the museum’s vault while Loki performed a rather elaborate diversion outside, and Selvig would have the portal generator assembled and powered on long before the would-be heroes put the pieces together.

They must have thought him weak, to strap him in to a seat in their airship, a child swaddled against the cold breast of an unforgiving mother. He sat, grinning to himself and any of the small crew who dared to look his way. Especially the redheaded woman—he felt he would particularly enjoy pulling her walls apart piece by piece until they crumbled, taking her sanity with them. Pathetic.

Vibrations of distant thunder rippled through the craft while turbulence tossed it like a ball on a wave. Loki’s pulse quickened and though he sucked in as much air as he could, it felt inadequate. _They do have storms on Midgard, you know. It doesn’t have to prelude anything. How would he even get here?_

The muscular blonde mortal uttered a jibe about the weather, and Loki laughed it off, nerves fraying under the constant strain of uncertainty. He thought it his imagination when a loud bang on the roof rocked the tiny aircraft. Boot steps sounded to the cargo bay door, each one hammering home the realization that these were no mere mirage. By the time Thor’s great bulk alit on the cargo ramp, Loki cowered against the curve of the plane, silver tongue weighted with terror and his heart beating the singular prayer of _flee-flee-flee-flee_ thrice in a second.

The thunderer’s strong hand closed about his neck, tearing him from the security of mechanical guardian into the waking reality that had haunted his dreams for so many months. Fingers found purchase in the flesh of his trapezius, dragging him toward damnation, and when they jumped together from the back of the craft, serenity filtered through panic like blood through water, the first infusing and forever changing the essence of the second. Finally, freedom peeked the murky horizon of his wretched life.


End file.
